The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) is reminding farmers that several deadlines for nitrates will fall later this week.
The closing date for derogation applications and dairy banding submissions is Friday, April 19, 2024.
Derogation applications for this year can be submitted using DAFM’s on-line portal, while the nitrates dairy band for dairy herds can now be submitted online via the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) website.
Nitrates
Under the Nitrates Regulations, farmers are required to keep certain records for each calendar year.
These must be finalised by March 31 of the following year, and these records must be kept for five years.
Farmers who had a 2023 conditionality inspection, were required to submit 2023 Nitrates Records (including 2022 records for concentrate feed usage) by March 31, 2024.
However, given the adverse weather and current pressures on farmers and planners, the deadline for submission of the 2023 SMR 2 Nitrates Records was extended to this Friday (April 19).
Completed record templates along with the relevant dockets/receipts should be returned to the DAFM conditionality unit which is based in Portlaoise.
“Failure to submit or the late submission of nitrates records will put at risk a farmer’s payments from the department,” a DAFM spokesperson told Agriland.
Banding
Nitrates banding for dairy cows was introduced in January 2023 under the new Nitrates Action Programme (NAP).
It is part of a series of stronger measures being implemented by the EU to protect water quality, including the extension of the closed periods for slurry spreading.
Prior to the introduction of this system, each dairy cow in the country was assigned a standard figure of 89kg of nitrogen (N)/head.
Under banding herds are placed in one of three excretion bands depending on their average milk kg/cow.
Declarations can be done through the ICBF website, once farmers have consented to share their milk purchaser sharing their data with ICBF.
Farmers that have not consented to this will need to complete a manual form and provide supporting milk purchaser statements.